Don't be fooled into thinking you have to spend a small fortune to have a beautiful wedding, the simple truth is, YOU DON'T. 

Having been married before I wanted a beautiful wedding, of course, but there was no way I was going to fall into the trap of being held to ransom by unscrupulous people whose eyes light up at the mere mention of the word WEDDING.  I bought a beautiful dress from a lady in Singapore, the total cost was £80, INCLUDING POSTAGE.  The dress was gorgeous,everyone said how gorgeous it was, and of course I kept quiet, and let them assume it cost me a fortune ;0).  I just hope not too many of them read this!!

I made my own pew ends for a fraction of the cost of buying ready made, all I used was one rosebud for each decoration,1 lilac and 1ivory,I  added net and ribbon, and attached one per pew. I made the decorations for the tables at the hotels, using plain glass bubble vases, filled with lilac and ivory sparkling stones and crystals, and added a candle, and yep it looked great.  We organised the music for the evening party ourselves, and added a disco ball that I bought online for £20, and there you have it, a disco!!!  Well we enjoyed it anyway.

I made my own favors the only cost there being the sugared almonds. 

I bought 3 cakes from M&S, a large one for the base a middle sized one and a small one for the top, I added pillars and some fresh flowers my florist made up for me to match my bouquet, these I arranged to drape down from the top tier. It looked as good as many of the £300 I'd seen.  My masterpiece cost £80 in total. 

Remember, you're EATING the cake, not marrying it!   Some of the cakes I've seen  cost more than a lot of us are prepared to pay for a dress!

There is no way you should be upstaged by a CAKE.

 The bridesmaids dresses I bought from the same lady in Singapore, and they were again gorgeous. They were in very pale lilac, and were exactly the right size, and even lovlier than I had hoped.  Having seen some of the awful stories about people buying terrible dresses from abroad, perhaps I was lucky in my choice of designer, but I honestly couldn't fault her.

  I bought my jewellery for the Big Day from America,  for the equivalent of £20, a beautiful pearl choker and matching pearl  drop earrings, plain, but very classy.

The only thing that was  non negotiable was  the Church, and I do find this a little odd really, not that I would have gone in haggling with the vicar, but in these days of falling congregation numbers, I would have though that it would have been preferable to have lowered the costs of the Church, thereby encouraging people to come back, even if only for the odd occasion, it's better than not having them at all.  I think the cost of the Church and the bells was £400, which I still think is exhorbitant! 

Maybe I'll write a book, entitled"Haggling with Vicars", I know it wont have the pull of, "Dancing with wolves", but useful non the less.

Next, and as  this is probably where the majority of your cash will be spent...... The Reception........ my advice is to  NEGOTIATE with the caterers at your reception venue, don't allow them to run the show, it's YOUR money after all.  I know we Brits have the reputation of HATING to haggle, but go on, bite the bullet, you CAN be polite while you do it you know, it doesn't HAVE to be brutal!

  There is always room for negotiation, usually they will meet you half way, if only to offer a reduction on childrens meals, as I did find that some venues wanted to charge £20 for a childs meal, a child of 3 at that, and a baby of under 2!, they could'nt have eaten £20 worth of food if they'd stayed there for a week.

  See if perhaps they will offer you the bridal suite for the night of the wedding, if, as the majority of mine did, you have guests booked into the hotel, it's a nice gesture on their part to offer this.  Corkage (the charge made for opening your wine and champagne) can also be negotiable, after all when you go out for a meal, and ask for wine, the waiter doesn't then charge you a fortune to open the bottle for you does he ???

 I found that as mine was a Summer wedding, substituting glasses of Bucks Fizz for the champagne usually offered to guests on arrival at the reception, not only saved a small fortune ( I provided my own) but all the guests said that they actually preferred it to champagne anyway, much more refreshing, the Champagne was reserved for the toast.

 Call me a heathen if you like, but I prefer to go with what tastes good as opposed to what "you're supposed to have", I have no idea who makes the rules anyway, as far as I can see, it's YOUR day, you do it YOUR way!

  Our wedding cost us the princely sum of £3,000 and considering the "average" cost of a wedding in the U.K is  somewhere in the region of £11,000, and thats a very basic figure, I feel that we had all the frills and twice the fun  for a fraction of that.  I think some of the fun was down to the fact that we hadn't incurred any debt and still had a beautiful day.

Finally THE most important piece of advice..............Don't become obsessed with perfection, you will be disappointed as NOTHING ever goes totally to plan, ................. Remember why you're doing all this, so that you can have a day to remember to look back on in years to come, with the person you love right?  ........So ENJOY it warts and all!  ....................As I said before, our day cost us approximately £3,000 and for that we had a glorious day, beautiful Reception venue, terrific photographer, who did us a pre wedding shoot as well, and all the happy memories we could ask for.  If you look closely at this picture you can JUST see the pew ends I was talking about, you may need a magnifying glass.

If you have found this guide even  little useful, will you please rate it for me.  Thank you x